Seeking the “Oh, Thank Goodness”

How good are you at handling things that need doing? Some people have a tolerance for when things don’t work, and some people have no tolerance for that at all. I’m in the middle somewhere. The dripping tap. The door hinge that sounds like a sound effect from a horror film. The box of receipts that you need to sort for the accounting. That carton in the back of the closet that you know you could get rid of if you took ten minutes to have a look.

Handling things (little and big) can be a great way to clear out some mental clutter, and ease some psychic pressure.

Here’s an example.

We had an internal door that we had a builder swap the hinges on (so it opened a different direction into the room). The hinge change meant that the door knob no longer worked, and for some reason, doing the door knob wasn’t in the builder’s brief. So we lived with a door that didn’t have a knob for (*cough*) years (*cough*).

Then one day, I bought a door knob thingy from the hardware store. And it was only (*cough*) half a year (*cough*) later that I installed a door knob (the first in my life).

When it was in place, there was this overwhelming sense of “Oh, thank goodness that’s handled. What a relief.”

It’s that “Oh, thank goodness” bit that interests me.

I know that it is physically impossible for me to do everything that I want to do or need to do. (Just like you know you can’t read every good book ever written, or watch every great movie.) But the things (big and little) that get handled and deliver that “Oh, thank goodness”–those can be precious. Sometimes they’re very simple (the dripping tap); sometimes they’re complicated (catching up with the bookkeeping). But inevitably, there’s an “Oh, thank goodness,” waiting at the end.

And that’s almost worth it on its own.

So this week, I invite you to look around, and find a thing that you can handle (big or little, your call), then handle it. Once it’s done, look for the “Oh, thank goodness,” and enjoy the heck out of it.